free yarn!

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Originally uploaded by eudyptula48

I'm the lucky recipient of these lovely odds and sods from my friend Janice. I had this awful "Tubey" sweater that I made from some luscious Aurora 8. It looked bad on me and the colors were almost right for an analogous color scheme, but not quite. I used black as the main color, immediately finding myself in some sort of '80s flashback horror.

Needless to say, it sat in my closet unworn for at least a year, lording it over me. Until Monday! I delightedly frogged the damn thing and decided that the short lengths still wanted to be worked in stripes. This led me to the attractive and clever "Leftovers" vest, also a Knitty pattern. Unfortunately, I wouldn't have enough Aurora to work the whole vest without reintroducing the black, and thus my unhappiness.

Janice came to my rescue with inspiration and supplies. She recently made a fair-isle vest with scrap and leftover yarns. She also has trunks, bags, and boxes of yarn leftover from a lifetime of knitting. I was generously allowed to scavenge out the pinks, and at the same time we picked out blues, creams, and grays to make a vest for her husband. This all ties in to our new philosophy, at least for knitting: "use it up"

the dalek lives!

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Originally uploaded by eudyptula48

I'm pleased to be finished with my Dalek. I started it earlier this month and set it aside in a fit of despair over bobbles, but once I got beyond that, it was easy to finish. Details are as follows:

Main color: Lion Brand wool ease, about 50 grams in "oxford gray,"
Contrast color: a mystery yarn, about 50 grams.
Needles: size 4 circulars and dpns

I chose to do the shoulders in colorwork, as the pattern suggests. No significant mods to the pattern, though I did run across a few errors. They were easy enough to remedy that I didn't note them down.

a very paternal zeebee

Since it's finally dry, I am now enthusiastically in love with my Dad's zeebee. I used exactly 1.5 balls of Nashua Wooly Stripes on size 9 needles. This made a soft, forgiving fabric with enough spring to make the hat comfortable. The color is called cognac, which is a blend of browns, silvery gray, and black. As the yarn name suggests, it is self-striping, but in a gentle way suitable for the rustic-looking single-ply yarn.


The zeebee is knit flat, sideways, with short rows shaping the crown. The two ends are grafted together to make it into a functional hat. The best part is that Schmeebot put together a pattern generator so that you can make them at any gauge and in any size you want. Brilliant! I will definitely make this hat again, it's so versatile and shows off the personality of yarn very well.

the dalek rises

So I'm working on Penwiper's supercool EXTERMAKNIT dalek as a gift for a certain lucky family member. I have to admit relief at being past most of the bobbles: it took me about an hour to complete each bobble row. Toward the end I was finding it less than joyful, but the result is really awesome. It is definitely worth doing if the FO will be for a small child; no buttons or beads to swallow.

My circular knitting method for this project has become a bit eccentric: 3 dpns and a short circular. Something like Cat Bordhi-lite. I haven't lost it, I just have the other two size 4 dpns engaged in the border of a lace project.

i'm not sure i can lift my arms

Funny that on my second day of knit-blogging, all I could do is bang out a few anonymous rounds on my mom's socks while subbing this morning. You see, Red Sox games are mandatory around here, and last night's shellacking dragged on past midnight. My husband quickly hassled me into bed because he took a benadryl and was about to drop. I didn't have time to wind down and thus laid there semi-conscious all night, attempting to bore myself to sleep by restricting my thoughts to "breathing in.... breathing out." Not helpful. Moreover, Charlie cat, the pushy one, has figured out how to break into our room and was walking all over us and purring at hourly intervals. (Do your cats get extremely annoying in their adoration of you? Charlie just gets lovey and can't sit still.)

I had a merciful vacation from consciousness after lunch, but all that really did was shut off the tired while my eyes were closed. That leaves me with the following goals for the afternoon:
1. Tea
2. prepping Swedish meatballs for dinner
3. vacuuming up the allergens
4. putting the laundry in the dryer before it mildews
bonus: not hitting my head on the lightbulb or the scary, asbestos-covered pipe with the distressingly large dust-forest on top while I'm at it.

<-- The culprit

I will almost certainly end up at the Y, not because I'm fit, or keen, but because of guilt, and maybe the new flat-screen tvs.

Modding Saartje's Bootees

I recently made two pairs of Saartje's Bootees, the extremely quick, terribly cute garter-stitch baby shoes that are quite popular on Ravelry. Since I'm stubborn, I didn't follow the strap directions for the first pair, and was unhappy with the button closure. I ended up having to sew in a loop of yarn on the end of the strap: not visually pleasing.

On my second pair, when I got to the straps, instead of using an additional piece of yarn to make a long-tail cast on, I did the following:
CO 11 using cable cast-on
k 1 row
k 19, (YO) twice, k2tog
BO in knit, dropping first YO from needle

This created a little button hole and gave the bootees a little more balance with an end on the strap. I think these will look great with some EZ garter-stitch designs like the BSJ and the FBS, or even the Baby Bog Jacket.

out of a job, again

Ok, since I'm once again not working, I'm basically knitting full-time. I've gotten some encouragement to start up blogging again. Let's see what happens!